Nothing!
Not one move since expiration day and that's the way uh-huh, uh-huh we like it in our virtual retirement portfolio because, when we actually retire - who the hell wants to have to work - even when that job is simply pushing a couple of buttons on a computer screen once in a while? Our long-term outlook has been bullish since we began this portfolio last April and we did nothing when the S&P fell 300 points and we did nothing now that it's back up 300 points - to about where it was when we started.
Our goal here is to simply generate a monthly income of $4,000 using $500,000 invested without depleting the principal - the kind of thing that my Mom and many of her friends need to do to supplement their not very generous Social Security checks. Please see previous posts in our Virtual Portfolio section for our main strategy discussions - this is just an update.
Our last update was on January 12th and we finally had some work to do after taking 4 consecutive months off as we just laid back and collected our Q4 dividends but January had a lot of our short sold January positions coming due or paying off. We knew this was going to be our time for action as there really is no such thing as a free lunch - even the investing class has to roll out of bed and sit at a desk a couple of times a year!
Prior to making our moves, we had $80,617 of realized gains (positions we had cashed in) against $39,965 for a $40,652 net gain in our 8th month so averaging a bit better than $5,000 a month and well a head of schedule but this is the month we EXPECTED to do well in so we'll see how we made out.
